Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“The absence of knowledge is a wound that will not heal.”

Soldiers of the Parthenon all had a certain look to them, literally: beautiful and deadly like highly polished knives.

Losing a ship was a disaster that you literally could only walk away from.

“The Parthenon was founded because of good people. Parsefer and her fellows looked at the way Earth had gone and saw inequality, exploitation, divisions, hatred and ignorance. They wanted to start again and do better. And if you’re boosting your population through vat-parthenogenesis, it’s easier just to work with the female line.” Idris reckoned that was both a simplified and sanitized explanation, but perhaps it was what Solace believed.

What’s the point of making better people, if they’re still sad and afraid and lonely?”

That was the problem with associating with criminals. It led to Newtonian espionage. Each action produced an equal and opposite reaction and you couldn’t use without being used in turn.

“The problem with judgement calls is that they’re only ever good or bad in retrospect.”